Thoreau Wannabe

Mondays are stressful days for me. All my classes this semester are on M/W/F, and on Monday afternoons, after I've taught all my classes, I also meet with a graduate student who's doing an Independent study with me (in Women's Lit & feminist literary theory, which I'm so excited about and enjoying thoroughly). Then, after we finish discussing the novel or essays of the week and she leaves for her next class, I have office hours until five, which I try to use as productively as possible.

Don't get me wrong. I love my job. It's just that by the end of the day, Mondays especially, I'm usually so wound up that it's hard to turn myself off. My mind just can't stop feeling like there's something I should be doing. It keeps running in circles.

So, last Monday I had an idea. After I got home, I put on my walking shoes and decided to go for a nice walk before I started supper, or washed a load of clothes, or did anything else that resembled more work. I resisted walking down the road in front of our house because that's where I run most every morning, and I didn't want this to feel like exercise. I wanted it to be relaxing.

"I've got it!" I thought. Our house is surrounded by pasture, and behind the pasture are some woods. We had them logged a couple of years ago, and my husband has been slowly clearing trails through the woods, beautiful winding paths that look like tunnels through the trees, decorated with fallen logs, misshapen mushrooms, mossy stumps. "That's it! Exactly what I need," I decided.

So I spent a little time walking through the fallen leaves, listening to the wind blowing through the tree tops, not worrying about time, or pace, or aerobic intensity. I watched the squirrels scamper, saw a rabbit or two, kept my eyes open for deer, although I didn't see any. I was just winding down, living in the moment. Practicing intentionality, I thought.

Only I didn't intend to get poison ivy on my left ankle and chigger bites in various places on my lower extremities. I mean, I had on long pants, thick cotton socks, and sturdy walking shoes.

I guess relaxing walks in the woods will have to wait until after the first frost. Any "unwinding" suggestions til then?

Try This

I just finished reading Barbara Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World, and in her chapter "The Practice of Saying No: Sabbath," she includes an exercise that I've adapted a little and am going to try. I invite you to try it, too.

First, get a pencil and a piece of paper and find a few minutes that you can be alone. Then, on one side of the paper, list "all the things you know give you life that you never take time to do." What makes life meaningful to you? What's the life like that you live in your innermost dreams? What do you do in the life you meant to live but haven't gotten around to yet? Think about standing at the end of your life looking back over it: what would you wish you had included? changed? left out? Do not judge yourself or edit your list. "Promise not to shush your heart when it howls for the list it wants," Taylor encourages.

Now, flip the paper over and "make a list of all the reasons why you think it is impossible for you to do [or be] those things." That's all.

But now a seed has been planted. Maybe your longing heart will find a way through all those excuses. I hope mine does.

Small Rituals

Rituals are actions that have symbolic value. They are a way of acting out in the physical world what we believe to be true in the spiritual world. They can focus our minds and direct our thoughts towards God. They can add beauty to our lives and comfort us. I wrote in an earlier post, Coveting the Metaphor, about how Sue Monk Kidd's conscious use of symbol and metaphor enhanced her spirituality and her life. I believe that the addition of small rituals can do the same.

To enhance my pursuit of intentional spirituality, I have added a few small rituals to my devotional time. First of all, I have set aside a certain place for my morning devotions. It's upstairs, just a comfortable chair in the corner of a bedroom, but it's a quiet place away from chores and TVs and the normal bustle of life. On one side of the chair is my Bible, the devotional/theological book I'm currently reading, and my journal; and on the other side is a table where I've placed a small candle. Before I begin, I light the candle. Next, I open my journal, date the entry, and then write down one thing for which I'm grateful. I don't make a huge list, although I could. I just wanted to establish a ritual that will encourage me to have a grateful heart. Next, I read a passage of scripture and choose one or two verses to copy into my journal, and make a few comments on these--why I chose what I did, the connection to my life, a realization I've just made, a prayer, anything I feel at the moment. Next, I read a chapter or so of the devotional book, copying any great lines or paraphrasing intriguing discoveries into my journal and commenting on them. Then, I pray. When I finish, I blow out the candle. Extinguishing the flame does not signal the end of my pursuit of God, but it is a ceremonial closing to a time of dedicated devotion.

The candle ritual works for me on several levels. It's beautiful and comforting. Because it signals a beginning and an end, it focuses my mind on the present and my purpose. The light of the candle has a metaphorical connection to God. The scent of the candle is reminiscent of the incense burned in the Old Testament, which symbolized the prayers of the saints. It is an intentional act performed for spiritual purposes.

If you have any rituals that you find beauty and joy in, I'd love for you to share them.

1 John 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

Psalm 141:2 Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

From Marilynne Robinson's Gilead:

--I was struck by the way the light felt that afternoon. I have paid a good deal of attention to light, but no one could begin to do it justice . . .

--The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light. It seems like a metaphor for something. So much does. Ralph Waldo Emerson is excellent on this point. It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within the great general light of existence. Or it seems like the poetry within language. Perhaps wisdom within experience. Or marriage within friendship and love . . .

--I think sometimes of going into the ground here as a last wild gesture of love--I too will smolder away the time until the great and general incandescence . . .

A Merry Heart

Proverbs 17:22 "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones."

Functional Spirituality

Every time I go to a conference, I'm tempted by all the books there for sale, especially the ones I can have autographed by the authors who are plenary speakers. I restrained myself to three books at the CSC, and this is one of them--Barbara Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World.

Here's what the publishers have to say about this book:

From simple practices such as walking, working, and getting lost to deep meditations on topics like prayer and pronouncing blessings, Taylor reveals concrete ways to discover the sacred in the small things we do and see. Something as ordinary as hanging clothes on a clothesline becomes an act of devotion if we pay attention to what we are doing and take time to attend to the sights, smells, and sounds around us. Making eye contact with the cashier at the grocery store becomes a moment of true human connection. Allowing yourself to get lost leads to new discoveries. Under Taylor's expert guidance, we come to question conventional distinctions between the sacred and the secular, learning that no physical act is too earthbound or too humble to become a path to the divine. As we incorporate these practices into our daily lives, we begin to discover altars everywhere we go, in nearly everything we do.

In the Introduction, Taylor herself says this:

I have no idea what you'll see when you look at your life--but if you are tired of arguing about religion, tired of reading about spirituality, tired of talk-talk-talking about things that matter without doing a single thing that matters yourself, then the pages that follow are dedicated to you. My hope is that reading them will help you recognize . . . some of the altars in this world.

This is definitely my next read. See what I meant about synchronicity?

P.S. Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad!

Yes, but How?

It's very easy to get caught up in the idea of being more spiritual, but if I am not intentional (there's that word again!), that's all it will be: an idea, not a reality. And that is not what I want. I know that I am an "idea person." I can easily live in the world of books and ideas and feel like I'm doing something or changing my life, but all I'm actually doing is reading about doing it, thinking about changing it.

I guess I should define my terms here. We've all heard the old saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." But I'm not talking about having good intentions. I'm talking about living with Intentionality. The dictionary defines "Intentionality" as "the quality or state of being intentional; having, or being formed, by an intention; doing by intention or by design, on purpose." So you see that Living Intentionally carries me past the state of forming good intentions into the realm of actually living them.

This, of course, is not a new idea. I'm always amazed at my own slowness to grasp concepts, to fully comprehend things I already know and sometimes even practice in certain areas of my life. When my youngest child started school, I decided that that was the perfect time to begin a regular exercise program. Knowing my own body clock and personal propensities, I realized that I must work out first thing in the morning or it wouldn't get done. I intended to exercise; I chose a time; and I carried through with my plan. I didn't allow myself to decide every morning if I wanted to do it because the decision had already been made. I didn't just intend to exercise--I wanted to be the kind of person who exercises regularly. Years later, I still am. And I know it's because I have a plan, a schedule, and I follow it. It's not because I have some vague idea of needing to exercise. It's a part of my life now, a component of who I am.

This, then, will be the model for my intentional spirituality. There are some really interesting parallels. First of all, I realize that my main time for Scripture reading, devotional/theological reading, prayer, and meditation must be in the morning. For one reason, this symbolically puts God first in my life. It sets the tone of my day. Additionally, just like exercise, if done early in the morning it can't as easily become crowded out by the normal busyness of the day. But there are other similarities. I haven't done exactly the same workout for all these years. I've changed and adapted my workouts as I've encountered new information and as my needs have changed. I fully expect to do this in my spiritual pursuits. I'll read different scriptures, and from different versions. I'll pursue different ideas in the devotional and theological texts I read. I'll investigate contemplative prayer and different forms of meditating on God and scripture. And, just as I've incorporated functional fitness (taking the stairs instead of the elevator, parking farther away and walking, etc.) into my life, I plan to incorporate "functional" spirituality, for lack of a better term, into my life. I don't want to put my pursuit of God in a box, relegating it only to corporate worship or morning devotional times.

But we'll talk about that tomorrow . . .

Intentional Spirituality

It's hard to pursue a graduate degree in English without questioning your faith. We are trained to parse words, to analyze texts for multiple meanings, and to recognize the inadequacies of interpretations and translations. Throw into the mix extremely intelligent, well-spoken fellow graduate students who either regard the Christian faith as outdated and irrelevant or who are openly antagonistic towards it, and your uncertainty is intensified. And if, as I do, you have the type of personality that always searches for the answer, that must be certain, that has to know, well, you may be headed for a dark night of the soul even as you search for some small ray of light.

I was groping through that darkness. I think the physical and mental exhaustion of completing a PhD in three years (teaching full time one of those years and Honors Symposium all of the summers, driving so far back and forth the first year, living away from home and family the second) contributed to my spiritual dryness. I poured all my energy into completing the degree, slowly crowding out time for Scripture, prayer, meditation.

Life is funny, though. Right in the midst of my barren times came synchronicity. I guess you could also call it providence. First, I read a book called Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. This is a beautifully written book by a woman who left Christianity to pursue the Sacred Feminine, and while I did not agree with her journey into paganism, I did admire her intentional spirituality and was intrigued by her research into the nature and being of God. This led me to books on theology, where I encountered this appellation for God: The Divine Mystery.

Everything in me reacted to this name. How beautiful! And how freeing! Augustine said that if you have understood, then that which you have understood is not God. Elizabeth A. Johnson says that the "incomprehensibility of God [is] a mystery of free and liberating love, love that draws near, chooses us without our deserving it, accompanies and bears us, walks the path of struggle, promises victory, dwells among us to gather us in." This name for God, The Divine Mystery, allows us to not understand, to not comprehend completely, and to know that we never will. Yet, at the same time, it validates our pursuit towards understanding. It's almost as if this name gave me permission to believe and cling even through all my questions and doubts. It gave me permission to not have all the answers.

Then at the same time, because Marilynne Robinson was going to be speaking at the Christian Scholars Conference, I began reading her book Gilead. I have never read a more beautiful novel in all my life, and maybe I never shall. When I read the Twilight series, I said that I'd read almost two thousand pages without wanting to underline one sentence. This novel was the exact opposite. I wanted to underline every sentence of Gilead, and double underline some parts. I have never read a novel with so much Scripture and so little dogma, such holiness coupled with such humanity. It is a celebration of mystery and love, of the spiritual as well as the physical. Nothing I can say about this novel could do it justice. It is the story of a life lived in honor of The Divine Mystery.

Then, as I said yesterday, while at this conference I met some wonderful people who have chosen to live with such spiritual intentionality, searching for and worshipping God even as they realize that The Divine Mystery can never be fully comprehended in this life. I guess maybe all my life I've been drawn to this idea of God because I've always loved I Corinthians 13:12, especially in the King James Version: "For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part, but then I shall know even as also I am known."

I want, though, for my pursuit of God to be characterized by love instead of fear, by the desire for relationship rather than oughts or shoulds or guilt.

Suddenly, my cup seems full.

Intentionality

I've been blessed to be able to pursue a personal life goal for the past ten years, the last three of which I've spent working on a PhD. I am so thankful for this opportunity, and I have received so much more than I had even hoped for in the process. But along the way, my singleminded pursuit has crowded out so many good, even necessary, things that I value but have just let fall to the wayside. My fault, I know. But still, it has happened.

Life events, however, have come together to inspire me. The theme of last week's Christian Scholars Conference was "The Power of Narrative," and Barbara Brown Taylor, one of the plenary speakers, made a statement that really resonated with me. She observed that so many of us choose narratives too small for our lives. We fritter away our time on non-essentials, drifting along, never daring to live a narrative big enough to fit our dreams and goals.

On top of coming face to face with that truth, while at this conference I met several people who are living their lives so intentionally, with such unifying focus. They have decided what is important to them, and they are purposefully making room for those things in their lives, getting rid of the habits that rob them of time or room for human connection and spiritual pursuit, and adding things that bring them contentment and real happiness. There was something about these people. They had a peaceful countenance (an old-fashioned term, I know, but it fits exactly) and a quiet joy I envied.

It's not like this is a new idea for me. I've always had an inner vision of the kind of person I want to be and the kind of life I want to live, but that vision often gets trampled under the tyranny of the urgent. And it's not as if I think my pursuit of a PhD was a "frittering away of my life on non-essentials." It was, and is, a worthy goal and very important to me. But now, as I'm nearing the end of this years-long journey, I want to transfer my energies from this pursuit into creating a life that matters, one that honors my values and makes my outer reality match my inner vision. I want to live a life of Intention. During the next week or two, I want to write about different areas of Intention that I want to pursue. It may not be a daily theme because I'm still thinking this thing through. But I invite you along for the journey.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Travis!